Hockey analytics: Does size really matter in the NHL?

By:Phil CurryMikal SkuterudSPECIAL TO THE STAR, Published on Thu Mar 13 2014

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You can’t teach size. If given the choice between a good little man and a good big man, give me the good big man. If you can’t beat them in the alley, you can’t beat them on the ice.

There is an obsession with size in the NHL. Every trade deadline and every offseason some team is looking to “get bigger.” Teams salivate over big, physical players, while smaller, skilled players have to constantly prove themselves.

In 1994, the second year he was eligible for the draft, the Edmonton Oilers took 6-foot-4, 200-pound Jason Bonsignore fourth overall. Bonsignore played all of 79 NHL games in his career, managing three goals and 13 assists.

St. Louis, on the other hand has played 1,044 games, scoring 369 goals and 605 assists for 974 points. Did the fact that St. Louis is listed at 5-foot-8 and 180 pounds — which might actually be accurate if he’s wearing skates and all his equipment — play a part in how he was overlooked by the entire league in all three drafts for which he was eligible? Why are NHL GMs so fixated on player size? Is bigger indeed better?

The Department of Hockey Analytics first looked to see if bigger players performed better using the most obvious measure of performance: points. And there it was: bigger players did produce more. From the 1967-68 to 1979-80 seasons, that is. During that time, forwards less than 200 pounds scored at a clip of 0.55 points per game. The rate of production ticks up until it gets to 0.68 points per game for players in the 210-220 pound range. Over 80 games (which was the season length by the end of this time frame), this translates into 10 additional points.

After 1980, however, we could find no effect. Nothing. Zero. Performance is pretty much flat across the height and weight spectrum. If anything, there’s a gradual decrease as players get bigger. The graph depicts scoring for forwards at the beginning of the expansion era along with scoring in the post-lockout era. The line depicts the best guess as to the relationship between size and scoring based on the data. However, since there is some variation in the data, the shaded area shows the region in which the true relationship most likely lies.

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So back in the day maybe there was something to this “bigger means better” thing. But that was a long, long time ago.

Of course, size could translate into advantages other than just point production by the players themselves. It’s not uncommon to hear that bigger players “create space” for their teammates. If that’s right, then the benefit would be seen in the productivity of their teammates.

To that end we looked at how team size affected a player’s production. That is, if we consider two forwards of the same size on different teams, does the one with larger teammates perform better? Again, we found that the era mattered. In the ’60s and ’70s expansion era, five additional pounds of average teammate size translated into, on average, over three additional points per season. That’s a pretty big deal since it’s over three points for every forward on the team. Since then, though, this correlation has disappeared like a third period lead for the Maple Leafs.

Considering it’s been 30 years since bigger was better in hockey, why the continued obsession? One possible conclusion is that hockey is an evolving game, and people (GMs and scouts) are still living in the past. There was a time when size mattered, but these days it would seem that it’s not the size of the dog in the fight, it’s just whether the dog is any good at hockey.

The Department of Hockey Analytics employs advanced statistical methods and innovative approaches to better understand the game of hockey. Its three founders are Ian Cooper, a lawyer, former player agent and Wharton Business School graduate; Dr. Phil Curry, a professor of economics at the University of Waterloo; and IJay Palansky, a litigator in Washington, D.C., former high-stakes professional poker player and Harvard Law School graduate.